Collision Course
by OzGeek
Summary: An incident from McGee's past is causing him problems. Light and fluffy. Set in Season 4 so there is a the change in DuckyGibbs dynamics. Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

Ziva tore through the peak hour traffic at a pace that was outlandish even by her own high personal standards. Tony and McGee, in the front bench seat, could only grip their seats and scream in horror as she narrowly avoided the on-coming traffic with an air of nonchalance.

"You two are such babies," she muttered under her breath.

She shot around a line of queued cars, mounted the median strip and landed on the opposite side of the road with a thump.

"BUS!" yelled Tony to warn of the imminent collision.

Ziva swore and spun the wheel hard towards the correct side of the road, scooted across the median strip to allow the bus to pass and then landed back on the wrong side of the road with a bone crunching thud, pushing the design specifications of the vehicle's suspension.

Tony grimaced as the swerving manoeuvre caused McGee's head to thump hard against his shoulder. Then something struck him as strange: they were about the same height, how did Probie's head hit his shoulder? He snapped his head suddenly to the left to find McGee's head swinging pendulously, his body supported only by his newly installed seatbelt.

"Probie?" He expected no response and his expectations were fulfilled completely.

"Ziva, park this thing," he yelled urgently.

Tony wasn't sure whether Ziva had heard him, or whether it was a co-incidence but at that moment she cut across three lanes of traffic to her right and ended up 'parked' on the correct side of the road with two wheels mounting the pavement. The acrid smell of burnt rubber wafted through the cabin as she cut the engine.

"What!" She cried in exasperation.

"Someone has finally died of shock from your driving," Tony accused her, slapping McGee's grey face.

"McGee?" Ziva seemed a little surprised, "he's been through worse than that."

Tony gave her a withering look as he dug out his phone.

"Ducky, where are you?" he asked.

"Goodness only knows, Anthony," Ducky sighed. "Mr Palmer, do you know how far we are from the crime scene…oh hold on, is that you in that van at 30 degrees to the curb and two wheels on the pavement?"

Tony shot Ziva a disgusted look. "Yes," he confirmed.

"Oh then we're right behind you," Ducky sounded quite pleased.

Off to one side Tony heard him say "that's quite remarkable, well done Mr Palmer."

"Could you pull over a moment?"

"Righto," said Ducky cheerfully.

McGee started to rouse as Ducky parked.

"Did we crash?" he asked groggily, blinking repeatedly to orientate himself.

"Astoundingly enough, no," said Tony looking across at Ziva who crossed her arms and abruptly turned her face from him.

"Then why are we halfway up a pavement?"

"Because", Ziva cut in, "Tony went crazy yelling at me to pull off the road."

"Oh, you did hear me then. I thought it was just a co-incidence that we nearly wiped out half a dozen innocent motorists," Tony shot back.

Ducky knocked on the window and Tony opened the passenger side door.

"What seems to be the problem, Anthony?" He eyed the car, "apart from the obvious, of course."

Ziva narrowed her eyes, and huffed at him.

"McGee just seemed to pass out there for a moment," Tony started.

"No I didn't!" McGee denied vehemently, "I must have just dozed off."

Tony started at him, open mouthed.

"No," he said firmly, "you could doze off in a James Dean movie, a Marlon Brando movie or even, God forbid, a John Wayne movie, but you do not doze off in the front seat of the van when Ziva's driving."

"I have to agree with Anthony here Timothy," said Ducky, seemingly oblivious to Ziva's spluttering, "Why don't I just check your blood pressure?"

"I'm fine," McGee insisted, "There is nothing wrong with me."

"Nevertheless," said Ducky, unpacking his equipment, "if you wouldn't mind just stepping out of the way, Anthony."

Tony slid out of the car and Ducky wrapped McGee's arm in the cuff.

"Hmm," he pondered, prising McGee's right eyelid wider with his fingers. "You are a bit low. Do you feel OK?"

"I'm fine," McGee insisted in an increasingly aggravated tone.

"OK," Ducky surrendered, throwing his hands in the air. "We'll meet you at the crime scene."

As he passed Tony he said in a low voice: "keep an eye on him."

Tony nodded and then looked over to Ziva.

"I'm driving," he said shortly.

"But Gibbs said…," Ziva protested.

"Out." It was not a suggestion.

* * *

"What the hell took you so long?" Gibbs greeted them as they walked into the house.

"Ziva was driving," Tony began.

"And?" Gibbs prompted.

"Well, we had an, ah, incident," Tony hedged.

"Not another accident?" Gibbs rubbed the fingers of his hand wearily across his forehead.

Every time Ziva crashed another one, he got to spend a day with the legal department and everyone had to live with the consequences: mileages checks, video cameras, seatbelts, airbags…. All new, all with Ziva's Sandalwood scent on them.

"Actually no," Tony began, "You see we were driving along…"

McGee walked between the two of them carrying a load of equipment.

"Nothing happened, Tony," he said forcefully in Tony's face as he drew level with him.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at Tony as McGee passed. Something must have really happened for McGee to use that tone of voice with him.

"And Ziva swerved into the oncoming traffic...," Gibbs raised the other eyebrow at Ziva who shrugged and went back to sketching.

McGee dropped his load and headed back to where Gibbs and Tony were talking.

"Nothing happened, Tony," he repeated menacingly, positioning himself directly in front of Tony and glaring angrily at him.

Tony stared him down for a moment and then took a nimble step to the right to re-establish eye contact with Gibbs flinging his arms wide to illustrate the magnitude of the situation "and there was this humungous bus…"

There was a heavy thump on the floor and McGee literally became a shadow of his former self: lying face down on the floor, where Tony had been standing only a moment earlier.

"And Probie did that," Tony concluded lightly.

"Christ", Gibbs swore dropping to one knee and calling for Ducky at the top of his lungs.

"What's wrong with him?" Gibbs growled at the old ME.

"Hard to tell," said Ducky casually, using a tissue to wipe a trickle of blood that was leaking from McGee's nose. "It could be anything from the flu coming on to a brain tumour."

"That's your considered opinion after 25 years as a medical examiner?" Gibbs grumbled.

"No," Ducky retorted angrily "after 25 years as a medical examiner, I can categorically state that he's not dead. Anything else is merely speculation at this point."

There was a great gasp of air and McGee's eyes flew open. "What happened?" he asked in confusion, hit eyes flitting between the two feuding faces immediately above him. The tension in the air was threatening to descend and crush him through the floor.

"Nothing, apparently," said Tony.


	2. Workmate's doormat

It was certainly not the best day in McGee's memory. Although Ducky had allowed him to roll over onto his back so he wasn't actually inhaling the carpet, he had then insisted that McGee stay there: on his back, on the floor, in the middle of a crime scene. Feet stomped precariously close to his face and he could have sworn Tony was deliberately collecting dirt in the tread of his shoes with the specific intent of showering it on his face.

From his rather obscure vantage point, he could see there were some women in skirts moving around the crime scene. Did they hurdle over his face? No, he noted ruefully, it wasn't that sort of day.

At least his teeth had stopped aching but he had the sort of headache he always got after a bad night's sleep. Well, after a bad night's sleep accompanied by a whack to the forehead with a blunt object. Like a floor for example. His nose was still a bit sore too but Ducky assured him it wasn't broken. It had bled for a few minutes when he had first woken up but at the time he was too preoccupied with dodging the outfall from Gibbs and Ducky's sniping to think about it.

He was bored. He wasn't sure how many hours he had been lying there but he had pretty much become part of the furniture. He was beginning to suspect they were all going to go home without him. It all seemed so unnecessary: one faint, two tops. What was the big deal? There was nothing wrong with him. Anger and frustration stabbed him in the stomach.

"Well now Timothy," Ducky said cordially crouching down to him, "how are you feeling?"

"Fine." He snapped a little harsher than he meant to and immediately regretted it.

"Tell me, Timothy," Ducky continued unperturbed, "have you been having any nightmares recently?"

The question took McGee completely by surprise. How could Ducky possibly know about that? His jaw worked up and down a little before he could speak again.

"Maybe," he said hesitantly.

"You couldn't be a trifle more precise, could you Timothy?" Ducky was polite but insistent.

"Well, um, I, ah, keep waking up at night," McGee offered.

"Suddenly?"

"Ah yeah, I suppose so."

"And you have no memory of whatever you are dreaming about?"

"Ah no, it, I ah, just wake up, suddenly…" He averted his eyes and Ducky could see there was a little more to this waking up than he was admitting.

"And how is your state of mind when you wake up?" he probed.

"Um, sort of panicky, I guess."

"Ummmm," Ducky pondered on the problem, "How long has this been going on?"

"Not long."

Ducky gave him a questioning stare, eyebrows raised in expectation of a quantified answer.

"About a month," McGee admitted.

"Every night?"

"Most nights."

"Hmmmm," said Ducky again.

"So you're saying I'm just tired from all the nightmares?" McGee tried hopefully.

"No," said Ducky firmly, "I am not."

"So…," McGee prompted.

"So I need to think about it," Ducky concluded.

He looked up at the few remaining agents, "Special Agent Gibbs," he called formally. "Do you think Timothy could ride back with you in the sedan?"

Gibbs wandered over with an amused glint in his eyes, "You sure that's such a good idea, Doctor Mallard?"

"Be nice," Ducky warned, indicating towards McGee with his head.

"Can I get up now?" asked McGee's voice from the floor in a tone measured to compensate for his previous rudeness.

"Oh, my word yes," Ducky chuckled, "I'd quite forgotten you'd been down there all this time."

McGee rose stiffly to his feet and shot a frustrated look at Ducky's retreating back.

* * *

McGee's day did not improve once they returned to the bullpen. Tony was taking great delight in inserting the word 'bus' into as many sentences as humanly possible. He was getting quite creative, though McGee was almost certain that no one at the crime scene bore even a fleeting resemblance to BUSter Keaton. Currently, Tony was slowly sounding the letters "b", "u", "s" to see if he could elicit a reaction from him.

"I got it!" said Abby cheerfully as she bounced into the room.

"Give it to Tony," Gibbs directed whipping off his glasses and rising from his desk in one fluid motion.

Tony took the small cartridge from Abby's hand and inserted it into the drive.

"What is it?" He asked casually.

"Footage from the onboard camera in the van," said Abby excitedly.

"You film the driving?" Ziva seemed decidedly nervous.

"It became a legal necessity," Gibbs eyed her pointedly.

"Oh."

They assembled in front of the plasma screen.

"Sure you don't want to sit down or something, Probie?" Tony teased.

"No." McGee could barely keep his annoyance in check.

Gibbs aimed the remote control and spun through the footage at high speed. "Tell me when I'm close," he said.

"OK," said Tony excitedly, turning his attention to providing running commentary, this is where we mount the median strip and head for the oncoming traffic.

Gibbs reverted to play and Tony and McGee's shrill screams on the tape nearly shattered every computer screen in the room. A multitude of eyes turned as one from their work to focus on the small group huddled in front of the plasma before Gibbs managed to lower the volume.

"And there's the…," Tony began.

A huge bus suddenly filled the screen and there was the now all too familiar thump of McGee's body hitting the floor.

Gibbs killed the playback and for a moment they all stood looking down on him in silence.

"Play it again, Boss," Tony urged.

"DiNozzo!"

"No, seriously Boss, this could be a great party trick."

"Owww," McGee held his hand up to the back of his head, "I'm gonna have to start wearing a helmet."


	3. An evening with Mr DiNozzo

A trail of haphazardly discarded clothing formed a ragged path from the apartment door to the side of the bed. In that bed, one Special Agent Timothy McGee lay sleeping soundly, thoroughly exhausted from the vicious cycle of consciousness and unconsciousness to which his body had been subjected that day.

But then there was the sound.

In days gone by he would have arisen, gun at the ready and stalked through his apartment under the cover of darkness to defend his property and his life against whoever was currently trying to break in. Time had matured him, however, and instead he just reached over, jammed the adjacent pillow over his face and let out a small whimper.

"Hey," came Tony's cheerful voice in the darkness.

Tony did a scissor jump onto the vacant side of the bed, the resulting shock wave nearly throwing McGee out the other side. Then he wrestled the pillow from McGee to prop under his back. In response, McGee ripped his remaining pillow from under his own head and thumped it back down on top of his face.

"I thought I gave you a key," McGee's muffled voice still betrayed his exasperation.

"You did," Tony confirmed, "but that's no fun."

McGee whimpered some more and ground the pillow into his face with his fists.

"I have been thinking," Tony began.

"And that was such a momentous event that you had to rush on over?" grumbled McGee from under the pillow.

There was a pause. "Sarcasm doesn't become you, Probie", said Tony, hurt.

"No," he continued indignantly, "I was thinking about when you were 16, when you were a boy."

"How do you know I wasn't a cat when I was 16?" Interrupted sleep did not improve McGee's mood.

"Because you are allergic to cats, so that would be silly," Tony reasoned. "So I was thinking," he continued again, "about that smoking car your parents gave you."

"And 'the thing'?"

"Yes, the thing," Tony sighed morosely.

"Okay, I hit a bus," McGee admitted, "but that was almost half a lifetime ago." He peeled the pillow from his face and looked up at Tony, "why would it start affecting me now?"

"Well, let's go over recent events," said Tony sharpening his investigator tools.

McGee tucked the pillow under his head and propped himself up further with a hand under his head. "You mean like: when did it start?"

"Exactly", Tony nodded. "When did it start?"

"Well, today I suppose."

"Oh, no," Tony corrected him, "Ducky said you've been having nightmares for weeks."

McGee frowned, "you talked to Ducky about this?" he said warily.

"More he talked to me," Tony replied casually, "and Abby says you should keep a dream diary by your bed."

"What the hell's a dream diary?"

"It's like this book you keep on your bedside table to write down your dreams the moment you wake up. Abby believes in the power of dreams."

"How many people, Tony?"

"Small group," Tony assured him, "no more than thirty."

McGee sighed in defeat. What had ever made him think he even had a private life anyway?

"So how long?" Tony neatly redirected the conversation from the diversion to the topic at hand.

"Ok, the nightmares started about 4 weeks ago," said McGee precisely. "I checked all the cases we've been on since the last time I remember having no nightmares to the time I definitely started waking up: Nothing."

"You've already gone down this path, haven't you?"

"Oh yeah."

There was a pause while Tony considered how to approach the next topic.

"When you had, 'the thing'", he drew out the words, "what happened after?"

"No idea", said McGee, flatly, "the rest of the day is a total blank."

"OK", Tony angled around another way, "What would happen today if someone ploughed headlong into a bus?"

McGee winced momentarily and then recovered. He raised one knee under the covers and propped his head up higher on his arm thoughtfully, trying to work out where Tony was going with this.

"Ah, someone would call 911, and the ambulance would come, and.."

"Who _else _would come, Probie?" Tony prompted.

McGee frowned in the darkness, puzzled. Then it dawned on him.

"There's a police report," he started excitedly, "and since it was a bus company, I'd bet there were some photos for insurance. Tony, you're a genius!"

Tony sighed in frustration.

"What?"

"So I'm guessing you aren't the one who pulled the file then."

"What! No. The file's gone?"

"Not gone, so much, someone pulled it just before I got to it and I can't find out who. Maybe it's someone who wants to cover everything up!"

"Or maybe it's someone who wants to find out what happened just like you do," McGee pointed out.

"Damn," Tony swore softly, "I was sure it was you."

McGee sighed and rolled out of bed.

"Where are you going?" asked Tony in surprise, "records aren't even open now."

"I'm going to the bathroom."

The massive volumes of water he had consumed in a effort to protect his kidneys from the equally massive dosage of analgesics required to numb the pain in his head, had finally filled his bladder to a critical level

Tony looked down at McGee's feet and snorted. "You wear socks to bed?"

"I have poor circulation, OK?" He sighed wearily realising he had just unwittingly added yet another anecdote to Tony's repertoire.

Tony laughed again, "Admit it," he challenged, "you have mutant feet that you're afraid to show even when you're alone in your own home."

McGee stared at him in bewilderment, then shook his head and shuffled off.

Tomorrow he was getting a chain for the front door.


	4. File mongering

"McGee!" Gibbs tossed a folder on McGee's keyboard, just clipping his hastily retreating fingers.

"What's this boss?" he picked up the file a made to inspect the contents.

"Your accident report," said Gibbs curtly.

McGee froze and stared at him wide-eyed, paling by degrees until he almost faded away. He lowered the folder very slowly and placed it to one side on his desk.

"I'll a look at it later, Boss," he croaked.

"No, you'll look at it…," Gibbs began but he was cut off by Tony.

"It was you!" he said in amazement, "I went down there like 20 minutes after that meeting yesterday and it was gone. What have you been doing with it for the last 24 hours?"

Gibbs looked up at Tony solemnly, "Sanitising it," he said in measured tones.

"Ah," said Tony lightly, he personally might not have bothered with that step.

Gibbs returned his attention to McGee. "You will not be on active duty until we have this sorted out," he threatened. "Do you understand me?"

McGee swallowed dry-mouthed, "Yes Boss" he whispered but he still made no move to pick up the folder.

Gibbs held his gaze. "You realise I could pension you out on psych grounds?"

McGee closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and returned Gibb's stare.

"OK," he said finally with as much conviction as he could muster.

Eyes still fixed firmly on Gibbs; he reached his hand slowly over to where he had placed the file. It wasn't there. Puzzled, his eyes were drawn to the spot. He stopped short, the file had magically disappeared. At that precise instant, he heard Tony sobbing theatrically at his desk. He turned to see him sitting with his feet propped up on his desk, shuffling through the photos in the file.

"What a tragic waste…," he sniffed.

"It's a car, Tony," said Ziva bluntly.

"I know to you it's just a way to get from point A to the morgue," Tony started.

"Hey, DiNozzo!" yelled Gibbs impatiently.

"What?" he looked up and saw Gibbs and McGee staring at him incredulously.

Gibbs clicked his fingers a couple of times and put out his hand to receive the file.

"Oh, sorry Boss." He sprang from his seat and made the deposit, gracing McGee with an apologetic smile on the way.

"As I was saying," Gibbs continued to McGee eyeing Tony in the process, "you need to look at this file right now."

The time taken for the series of climax, anti-climax and climax had given McGee time to steel his nerve. He took the file from Gibbs unquestioningly. He procrastinated for just a moment, adjusting the angle of the file in his hands. Then he took a deep breath and opened it.

For a moment he couldn't see much of anything on the prints. The outside edges were clear enough but he could not seem to make his eyes focus on the center of the photos. Almost like the way Ducky's glaring light in autopsy always seemed to supersaturate the gynaecological bits of the corpse. He squeezed his eyelids together and felt sweat burn his eyes. He tried again, squinting hard trying to ignore the fact that his heart was slowly making its way up his chest and into his throat.

It wasn't working. He picked up the top photo and tried to just concentrate on just that one. The vignetting slowly cleared before him and there was a spark of recognition as the lines and colour of his first car materialised in front of him. He could not possibly comprehend that he had been able to fit in that car in that condition, let alone live through the experience. He felt the sweat run down the sides of his face and realised he was breathing way too frantically.

"He's going down, Boss," he heard Tony rushing up behind him.

'He's OK," Gibbs calming voice answered, "What do you see McGee?"

McGee stared a while longer at the tortured image in front of him. He distanced himself from the emotional frenzy going on inside his head and processed the gestalt. Then he saw it and relief flooded over him. He snapped the photo back on the desk and looked up at Gibbs.

"It's the same bus," he said simply.

"What, exactly the same?" Tony questioned. "That's a brand new bus in that photo by now it would be….," then he considered the notion, warming to the idea, "bussing geriatrics from their nursing homes to their bingo halls," he concluded.

He grabbed the photo off the desk, "He's right boss! It's the same make and model as the one Ziva almost ploughed into."

McGee was leaning back thoughtfully in his chair, "It still doesn't explain the nightmares."

"Maybe you saw it on your way to work," Tony suggested.

McGee looked up at him suddenly, "My way to work, I hadn't thought of that. I was looking at the cases."

"That's why I'm senior agent and you're still the.."

"I was late one day about a month ago," began McGee ignoring Tony's rhetoric.

"Tuesday the 13th," Ziva confirmed.

Tony, McGee and Gibbs turned as one to look at her.

"What?" she said innocently, "I'm a numbers person. I remember things. So sue me."

"Traffic was banked up for miles. There was an accident." McGee continued, "I ahhh, spent a fair bit of time going past it."

"Was it like yours?" asked Tony.

But McGee only closed his eyes and shuddered.

"So," said Tony in an attempt to distract McGee, "you were primed and ready by accident number one and triggered by accident-waiting-to-happen..."

"Hey," Ziva protested,

"…number two." Tony shot her a gleaming smile.

"So, what, am I OK now?" said McGee in confusion.

"Let's see," Tony had an evil glint in his eyes and they all knew what was coming.


	5. Conquest

McGee moaned low in his throat. His head was pounding and the smell of wet cat was making him nauseous. No, he considered, not wet cat: the carpet could just do with a good clean. He thought about getting up but he had learnt not to move without Ducky's permission. Besides, he actually felt appalling and, as a consequence, he was quite content to keep lying very still. If only someone could do something about the smell.

He knew his mind was wondering but having maxima located at both the front and back of his head, the wave pattern of the pain was analogous to the fundamental frequency of an open-end air column. Given that analogy was correct, logically there should be one single point in the middle of his head where there was no pain: a pain node. He tried vainly to locate the point but failed. The thought occurred to him that he might have just gone insane.

He could hear a very spirited argument going on somewhere.

"If that were the case, then all an alcoholic would need was insight and he would be cured. It doesn't work like that." Ducky was not in a good mood.

"It's getting worse," Tony observed.

"Yes, well it would," Ducky was exasperated. "If Doctor Phil and his group of McPsychologists would treat this as a real affliction and not just some party trick then perhaps young McGee might have a chance at some semblance of a normal life."

A small whimper escaped from McGee's lips before he had a chance to chase it down and stop it getting away. The small group turned and looked at him.

"Ah, Timothy," said Ducky consolingly, "pay no attention, I was just trying to dissuade this lot from treating the human mind as if it were a child's plaything."

"I still think aversion therapy, Ducky." Tony outlined his game plan; "every time he sees a bus, we whack him on the head. It might not work, but it'll be fun."

"Yes, thank you Anthony," Ducky grumbled, "Your degree in physical education is noted."

He turned his attention to McGee, still on the floor. "Perhaps some form of therapy might be warranted."

"OK," Tony warmed up again, "We'll start with tricycles, then bikes and work our way up to …"

"Would you get that for me please Ziva?" Ducky requested casually.

"Thwack!"

"Thank you much obliged. Now as I was saying Timothy, a little therapy. We are going to pay a visit to that bus."

* * *

Half an hour later a small group gathered at the 'Buses-r-us' depot. Ducky was explaining the situation to an impossibly grouchy grey-haired old woman who seemed more interested in the contents of her toenail scrapings than Ducky's theories.

When Ducky stopped his admittedly long-winded explanation she paused to look up at him.

"Give me your phone number and you can take the damn bus," she offered, dangling the keys from her grimy fingers in what might have been construed as an enticing gesture in a parallel universe.

Ducky gave Gibbs a sideways look.

"It's in a good cause, Ducky", Gibbs muttered under his breath.

Ducky narrowed his eyes and weighed up the pros and cons for a moment.

"Oh, alright", he relented with a forced smile at the crone, hoping against hope that she wouldn't attempt to grin back. He flicked out a pen and wrote a number on a notepad by the woman's phone.

"Knock yourselves out," she smiled at him, proving that at least three of her blackened teeth were still hanging in there doggedly.

On their way to the bus, Tony sidled up to Ducky, "You'd really do that for McGee?" he asked incredulously, keeping his voice low.

"Oh my, no," Ducky reassured him, "It was Gibbs' number".

McGee felt his heart thump in his throat as they approached the old beast. It was most certainly the same type as his old nemesis all those years ago, but from close range, it seemed fragile and weathered. He stroked the metallic frame and felt the bubbles in the paint and the occasional gritty patch where the rust had eaten through.

Ducky held the keys aloft, "So who knows how to drive a bus?"

Nobody blinked when Ziva snatched the keys from his hand and headed wordlessly for the bus' front door. They were too busy taking cover.

"Not you," Ducky motioned to McGee from his position of safety between two adjacent buses, "You have to be on it."

McGee's eyes opened wide in terror, "What!" he asked panic stricken, "with her?"

"I'm afraid so," Ducky commiserated.

"You're afraid?" McGee shot at him as he headed stoically for the bus. One way or another, this fear of buses was going to end. He hoped it wasn't the other.

Ziva fired up the engine and felt the raw power growl beneath her body. She pumped the accelerator rhythmically.

"Oh yesss," she crooned, "give it to me baby."

McGee raised an eyebrow at her and tried to find somewhere secure to brace himself. He was just trying to wedge his body between two rows of seats half way down the aisle when Ziva floored the monster shooting straight across the bus yard, through a metal fence and ploughing over an embankment towards a conveniently placed canal. The bus entered the embankment at an angle optimally predisposed to rolling it approximately three and a quarter times in a flurry of groaning metal and showering sparks before coming to rest on its side.

* * *

For a moment McGee thought he had just passed out again but then he twigged that he was lying on his side with one arm threaded around his head so that his hand was touching the other side of his face. There were rows of seats lying in jumbled heaps all around him with no respect for gravity. There was a warm stream of blood flowing freely down the side of his face which he tried to wipe with the back of the hand that was dangling nearby. Apparently, his anatomy didn't work that way.

He paused to get his bearings and slowly untangled his limbs from the seats. He could hear people outside calling faintly. Of more immediate concern was the smell of gas which was starting to burn off a layer of his nasal mucus membrane.

"You Ok Ziva?" he called out tentatively, peering around the interior of the bus carcass shakily.

"Oh good, you're awake" she called back in exasperation, "I'm just a little stuck".

McGee picked his way carefully down the upturned seats to where Ziva was trying to extract herself. He could hear the desperate sounds of people trying to smash windows but they seemed worlds away.

Ziva was very stuck. Her leg seemed to be wrapped around a section of the steering wheel in a manner so unnatural it made his stomach churn.

"Ahh.." he started uncertainly, "That could be a little broken."

"Ya think?"

"Sorry," he apologised, "I guess you knew that."

"Don't apologise," she gasped, trying to extract herself, "it takes too much time, just get me out of here, I can smell fire."

He sniffed the air and realised she was right. The window thumps were getting more frantic, the outside team could probably see the flames.

"OK", he steeled himself more than her, "This is going to hurt."

He knew Ziva wouldn't mind. She was pragmatic about pain, almost to the point of masochism.

He dug his arms under her body and lifted as best he could, ignoring Ziva's deafening screams and the puncture wounds her talons were making in his back. Hoisting her weight, he staggered through the stricken interior towards the window that the outside team was just managing to smash through.

Many hands and arms helped him out but he would not relinquish Ziva. Partly because he felt he owed her something for defeating his sworn enemy but mainly because he was pretty sure they had become conjoined though some bizarre fingernail/back connection.

As the others ran for cover, he strode purposely away from the smoking ruin with Ziva in his arms. He felt the shockwave from the explosion buffet his body but, fortunately, Ziva's screaming had stunned his eardrums enough to deaden the sound. The accompanying wave of heat singed the hairs on his back and he gave thanks his butt wasn't as hairy as Tony's.

As the explosions died down, McGee paused to look back at the crumpled remains of his old foe. It was well and truly dead now. Finally he could get a good night's sleep.

--END--


End file.
